


Nourishment

by obstinatrix



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: M/M, introspective smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 22:27:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18559153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix
Summary: Morse so rarely asks for what he wants; Fred can't deny him anything.





	Nourishment

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: infidelity, a potentially unsavoury element in how Thursday's thoughts about Morse switch between the paternal and the erotic.

The bread bin didn’t even shut properly, was the bugger of it -- Fred had noticed as much the first time he’d ventured into Morse’s basement flat, proffering a half-bottle of whisky and his cautious support. This place was worse than the last by a long shot, damp creeping up the walls, and with a bread bin that didn’t properly close, no wonder everything went mouldy after a day or two. 

That heel of a loaf had been there longer than a day or two, though, Fred would wager. His eyes kept tripping over to it now, the stubbornly half-open bread bin and the sad little nub of a fortnight-old loaf just visible inside. Next time he’d have to bring his toolbox in out of the car and bash that useless thing into shape; it looked as if it must have been properly hinged at some point. The thing after that would be to actually get some food in here. There was nothing in Morse’s kitchen, as far as Fred could see, but the inedible bread and a half-inch of milk powder all clagged to the tin, and something turning slowly to mush in the vegetable rack. A radish? Fred slid one hand distractedly over the bumps of Morse’s spine and peered more closely into the corner of the room. Definitely a radish. Inedible even when fresh out of the ground. 

“Thursday,” Morse said, breathlessly. _Endeavour_. Thursday didn’t often think of him as such, but he could see it now in all the straining lines of his body, once he turned his attention back to it: endeavour in the tendon taut in Morse’s neck and in the way he pushed himself back against Fred’s big body over him. His waist was so slight, Fred could near span it with his two hands. Honestly, next time: some food for the lad. Win would send a stew over as quick as blinking. Fred made a mental note. 

“There, lad,” Fred said, thumbing the nobbly spine and then upwards, towards the stark lines of shoulderblades. There was one dark freckle that stood out at the base of Morse’s neck, and Fred leaned down absently to kiss it. Morse shuddered, and Fred petted him once more, like soothing a fractious horse: “There, there.” 

“Please,” Morse hitched out, and groped behind himself for Fred’s hand, clutching at it. Fred let himself be moved, brought his arm around Morse’s chest and Morse half-sobbed, bucking forwards into Fred’s hand and back onto him all at once, as if he couldn’t get enough of this -- whatever this was. It wasn’t what the lad really needed, Fred knew that right enough. Morse was too much caught up in his own head, in his own strangeness: what was needed, really, was a nice girl and a nice cosy evening out dancing somewhere, then home to bed. A normal time, that was what Morse wanted. Fred couldn’t give him that. 

And yet -- Morse did _so seem_ to need this, whatever it was; to want it. Fred couldn’t fathom it, but it was the truth, he knew as much when Morse had pressed his clumsy mouth to Fred’s in the car like an idiot weeks ago, with a _streetlight_ blazing overhead, for God’s sake. Morse had gone for the flies of Fred’s trousers as if he was starving and pushing the lad away had been beyond Fred, when he was so badly in need of nourishment and usually so reluctant to reach for any. Like this, spread on the battered couch, all pale limbs in the moonlight filtering through the dirty windows, Morse was as much out of his tight little shell of stiffness as Fred had ever seen him, and how could Fred deny him that, then? Fred’s hand splayed wide across the lad’s pale throat and Morse’s voice rumbled low against Fred’s fingers, wanting. 

“Fuck me, please,” Morse said, and Fred shook his head, wondering that the lad could talk like that, say such things -- university education, that was what had done for him. But then, where would a lad like Morse have been, stuck up where he came from, with that -- that man? If Morse had been Fred’s boy, things would have been different. He would have been treated right, brought up with love. This, now, was as much as Fred could do to rectify the situation. For now, Morse was Fred’s boy, his wide mouth open, snatching for air, and his body open for Fred, for his every touch. Starved, he was. Fred couldn’t deny the hungry. It wasn’t in his nature. 

“Thursday,” Morse breathed; “Fred -- _sir_ \--” and he was shivering now, his body gone tight and desperate, and Fred shushed him, soothed him, kissed his throat and felt the tension thrum right out of Morse’s bones. 

“Shhh, Morse,” Fred whispered, “I’m here, lad. I’m here.”


End file.
